Alternate Reality Games, or ARGs, typically refer to practices where audiovisual mediums and life-size role-playing games are intertwined – such as Cicada or historical reenactments. They are limited in time, and will often present players with cryptic problems that require a collective effort to be solved.
More recent contributions to the genre have relied heavily on discussion boards and social networks to create a new brand of ARG, one in which the individual viewing experience is absorbed into a collective exegesis. These can be internet videos, fictional video games, music albums, etc. The one commonality between them is the fact they are presented neither as a game nor as a problem awaiting resolution; their creators, in fact, try hard to hide the fact they are ARGs at all. However, the viewer will notice audiovisual or narrative inconsistencies that create a divergence between the actual viewing and the “ideal”, unsuspecting viewing. The “game” for the viewer consists therefore of understanding there is a game. The viewer will then be led to other mediums (video games, websites, geographical locations, mp3 files, etc.) relevant to the ARG – indeed a cross-platform experience. Because the spectator will gain access to these other mediums through hints within the ARG, their interpretative power is inexhaustible, as any element could be another clue to the problem. Every aspect of the work thus becomes a sign or symbol in a virtually endless set of meanings.
In this intervention, we will present, analyze and try to situate ARGs within the mediums they invoke. Furthermore, we will discuss the psychological aspect of playing an ARG, that is, how this new kind of narration posits the virtual as an aesthetic of its own.

Anthony Bekirov holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts at the University of Lausanne (2012), and is currently writing his Master’s Thesis in Japanese Studies at Geneva University. He writes for art and cinema magazines and has published among other things : « Le jeu-vidéo, expérience-limite du sujet », Paris 2017, with T. Vaillancourt ; « Une généalogie du romanesque », Paris 2020, with T. Vaillancourt ; « Frontières, liminalité et multitude : sondes théoriques pour illimiter le sujet », Paris, 2020 (online), with T. Vaillancourt ; « Textual, Liminal, Fantastical Spaces in Kanai Mieko’s Early Writings » in Into the Fantastical Spaces of Contemporary Japanese Literature, London : Lexington, tbp.

Thibaut Vaillancourt is currently doing a PhD between Medienwissenschaft (University of Konstanz) and aesthetics (University of Paris-Nanterre). Among other things he has published : « Simulacres et reenactment : l’aura de Laura entre cinéma et télévision, de Preminger (Laura) à Lynch (Twin Peaks) », Montréal 2017 ; « Le jeu-vidéo, expérience-limite du sujet », Paris 2017; « Esquisse d’une généalogie du romanesque, du point de vue du jeu vidéo », Paris 2020, both with A. Bekirov ; « Le mème comme descendance prolifique du net.art – entre dispositif, appropriation et subjectivation », Paris 2020.